


Cold Mornings

by Rawrsuzie



Category: Free!
Genre: Anxiety, Anxiety Attacks, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Makoto is a precious angel, Mild Language, Much needed boyfriend loving, Polyamory, Rin swears too much, gay swimmers w/cats are my life, haru talks a lot, mild anxiety attack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-20
Updated: 2016-05-20
Packaged: 2018-06-09 13:44:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6909793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rawrsuzie/pseuds/Rawrsuzie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Waking up at 3:37 in the morning isn't anything if it means you can comfort the one you love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cold Mornings

**Author's Note:**

> Another lame title but eyyy more Free! trash. <3 This ones been sitting in my drafts folder for a while, so hopefully it reads well. 
> 
> I really enjoy MakoHaruRin dynamics because they all have such wonderful personalities and I really love writing them together. I have a mild form of anxiety and I get panic attacks pretty frequently depending on what's going on, and after watching Free! and falling in love with Makoto's character it's easy to project some of my issues onto him and believe he deals with similar things. I don't know what most people go through with their own anxiety, but most of what Makoto deals with here are based on personal experiences. Anxiety can be a horrible thing and many of us suffer from it without even realizing it, so let's all be positive and help one another! :)
> 
> Please enjoy! <3

When Rin wakes from a sound sleep at 3:37 in the morning, he thinks two things:  holy shit it’s fucking cold and where the hell is the blanket.

He feels around the bed for a moment simply refusing to open his eyes. He feels towards the middle of the mattress fully expecting to collide with another body, only to find that it’s empty and just as cold as he is. 

He realizes then that there’s someone missing from the bed.

_‘Where the fuck is Makoto?’_

He rolls over from his side of the bed, moving towards the middle where a certain brunette should be, and faces towards the other person in the bed and proceeds to push at his shoulder, shaking his remaining bedmate. “Haru…Haru! Wake up!”

Haru stirs slightly and cracks open an eye for a moment before pushing off the hand on his shoulder and turning his back towards the red-head, yanking the ‘missing’ blanket with him.

Rin sighs and scoots closer, putting his hand back on Haru’s shoulder. “Haru, wake the fuck up!”

“…cold…”

“Huh?”

The raven-haired glances over his shoulder. “Your hand is cold.”

Rin shoots him a glare. “No shit! Look who as all the fucking blanket!”

Haru snuggles into the comforter surrounding his body. “I was cold.”

Rin can only shake his head at him.

It was too early to deal with this…

Haru suddenly sits up, making the red-head next to him jump. “Oi! What the he—”

“Where’s Makoto?” He interrupts.

Rin gives him a questioning look. “I was going to ask you that. He wasn’t in the bed when I woke up.”

Haru shrugs.

They sit there for a moment in the silence of their apartment—both still in a sleep-induced daze trying to think of where their third partner could be.

And that’s when they hear muffled sounds coming from the bathroom.

They share a look with the other and gaze back at the slightly ajar bathroom door with light pouring out of the cracks.

“He’s in the bathroom?” Rin questions.

Instead of answering, Haru slides of the bed and makes his way to the bathroom door, Rin quickly following after him.

The closer to the door they get, the clearer the muffled sounds become. There’s the sound of sniffling and the occasional hiccup…

It sounds like…crying?

Haru hesitates at the door, sharing a worried glance with Rin before barging into the bathroom and startling the person inside.

The moment the two of them enter the bathroom, he shoots up and hastily tries to rub away the tears pouring down his cheeks. “Haru…Rin, s-sorry…did I wake you?”

He makes a pathetic attempt at a smile.

Makoto is sitting in the corner of their shared bathroom, knees drawn to his chest and back hunched over in a position that makes him so much smaller looking then he actually is. His hands are gripping at the shirt he is wearing and he’s noticeably shaking.

Haru’s by his side before any of them can even blink and Rin is right behind him, scooting the brunette over until all three of them are squished into the corner of their tiny bathroom.

They don’t say anything immediately—Makoto’s crying even harder now that he’s been caught and surrounded by his lovers. Rin has absolutely no idea what to say, and Haru…well, he hasn’t really ever been good with words.

Makoto is surprisingly the one to speak first. “I d-didn’t—I didn’t think it w-w-would get this b-bad…th-thought I could handle it. I-I should have woken—”

He cuts himself off with another sob, body shaking uncontrollably.

Instantly both of them understand what’s going on.

Haru and Rin share a look with one another as they snuggle closer to their lover.

“Makoto,” Haru called gently, “Makoto, breath with me? Inhale…”

Makoto grits his teeth and shakes his head, his breathing coming out in quick, short pants. He has a vice-like grip on his shirt, knuckles turning white with how hard he is squeezing his hands. Rin starts rubbing circles into his back while Haru rubs his thumb over one of his hands.

“I need you to start breathing with me, okay? Inhale…” Haru prompts again.

“C’mon Makoto, we’ll both do it with you.” Rin adds when Makoto hesitates.

Haru and Rin both take deep breaths and release them slowly. They do this two more times before Makoto finally joins in with them.

In…

Out…

In…

Out…

In…

Out…

In…

Out…

They do this for several minutes, sitting on the cold bathroom floor with nothing but the sound of their breathing filling the room. Slowly, very slowly Makoto’s body starts to unwind. His body stops shaking so violently until he isn’t shaking at all. Rin keeps rubbing small circles into the muscles in his back, pressing his thumb and massaging where it’s tense. Haru gently works Makoto’s hands out of the grip he has on his shirt and together both of them gradually work his body down until his legs are laid out straight with his arms lying at his sides. The brunet is still crying, tears leaking steadily down his face with an occasional hiccup that makes his entire body jump. He stares blankly ahead at the blank white wall of their bathroom, still following both of his lovers breathing.   

They don’t stop with their gentle touches even when they work his body to this calm state. Rin just start rubbing up and down Makoto’s arms and legs when the brunet is finally leaning back against the wall. Haru does the same on his other side.

They don’t push for an explanation.

This isn’t the first time they’ve seen him like this.

A lot of people wouldn’t consider, much less believe that Makoto Tachibana suffered from anxiety. It was something he’d dealt with for as long as he and Haru could remember. It was severe enough that it warranted the need for mild medication—nothing serious, just a little blue pill Makoto would take if he started feeling too anxious. He didn’t have any definite triggers of what would set him off. Sometimes it was caused by something like work (used to be school) or getting stuck in large crowds for long periods of time with no escape—other times it would simply strike out of nowhere and with no warning.

He was very careful, almost too careful to hide it from everyone excluding the bare minimum of individuals—mostly his immediate family, and close friends. As far as Haru knew, Nagisa and Gou weren’t even aware of it. Rei just so happened to find him in the middle of one, but never mention it again after giving Makoto a list of tips to help him calm down if he were ever alone while having an attack.

Makoto kept it safely tucked away in his wallet.

Rin hadn’t even known about it until 2 or so months into their relationship—Haru thanks whatever god above that he was present for that one or else Rin would have probably had an attack of his own.

After a five years of being together, two of those actually living together, it became much easier (for Rin) to figure out Makoto’s moods and when he might start getting closer to having a potential attack. He could handle them alone sometimes whether that meant he actually needed to spend actual time alone and away from everyone or that he needed to be alone with whoever he was around and comfortable with.

It was a lot worse when he was younger, especially through middle and some of high school when he was determined to keep it to himself. There was once or twice that he had to be taken to the doctor so that they could give him something to calm down, but that hadn’t happen in a long time.

Makoto wouldn’t always tell them what set him off—there were a lot of times when even he couldn’t figure it out. They had a silent agreement that if he wanted to talk about it he would and if he didn’t he wouldn’t—simple as that. Rin had told him once that he was fine with him not talking about it afterwards, but only if the same problem didn’t keep giving him issues. If that was the case, he needed to try to let them know a little of what was going on. It was very rare that Makoto let himself succumb to the same thing twice but almost always he’d give his partners at least an idea of what was wrong.

The main issue they always had was trying to convince Makoto to not blame himself.

Which was exactly what he was doing now.

“I-I’m so sorry…”

Rin wants to tell him to stop apologizing, but he knows Makoto isn’t doing it on purpose or to annoy them.

“It’s okay Makoto, you’ve done nothing wrong.”

Rin stops rubbing his hands all over Makoto and takes the hand that is nervously pulling at the loose string on his sweats. Haru follows his lead and takes his other hand.

They don’t say anything for a few minutes but Makoto is again the one to break the silence.

“It was a d-dream…” He says it so quietly, like a secret he’s not quite willing to share.

Haru nods his head, acknowledging they’ve heard him.

“Y-you guys just left me…just packed up your stuff right in front of me and left me…and-and I know that didn’t happen—I know you wouldn’t just leave me like that…you were right there when I woke up for god sakes…! It was stupid…a-and I don’t even know why I let myself get so worked up over it…!” He grinds his teeth together, tears of frustration replacing the ones that had almost dried up. “I’m so stupid…!”

“Makoto,” Haru interrupts, “look at me.”

Haru brings his other hand to his jawline and runs his fingers against the curve of his face. He gently coaxes the brunet to look at him.

“Don’t ever feel stupid for being human.”

Makoto opens his mouth to protest but closes it when he doesn’t have anything to respond with.

Haru takes it as a sign to keep going. “We all have these kinds of feelings—being sad or scared, frustrated and upset, the feelingly of helplessness and maybe anger—all of these feelings are very real and very human things to feel. Your feelings, no matter what they are, are very real and definitely not stupid.”

“I want to tell you that you have nothing to worry about, but I can’t promise you that we won’t ever leave you. I have practice around twelve tomorrow, so I’ll probably have to leave then—” Rin makes a snorting sound and Haru pauses long enough to glare at him before continuing, “—and this idiot is still itching to go back to Australia at some point—god knows why, but that’ll mean he’ll eventually leave at some point too…and that will suck until we have him back again. What I am getting at is that even though we’ll have to go—for a few hours or even a few months, that doesn’t matter—what matters is that we will always come back to each other—to our home.”

Haru takes Rin’s free hand into his own, squeezing both of their hands as he looked back and forth between the two.

“It’s okay to be afraid,” he assured, no longer directing this at Makoto, but Rin too. “I’m not going to tell you not to be because I can’t make you not be afraid or not to worry about something—but what I—what we can do is promise to always love and come back to each other, no matter how far away we may go.”

He gives a small smile and squeezes their hands once more.

“Our circumstances are…a little unconventional but I know even after five years that there isn’t anyone I want to spend the rest of my life with except you two. Marriage isn’t something we can really consider…so this is the closet I’ll ever get to wedding vows…”

Makoto gasps and Rin makes a choked sound.

Haru takes a deep breath, fixating his stare at the two hands he holds tightly with his before continuing. “Makoto, Rin, I just want you to know that I love you, I love you both so much…and it hasn’t always been easy for us, we’ve had tough times together and even worse times apart but I think it means something that we could always come back to each other—come home together. We are…together for a reason and I know I wouldn’t be the same person I am now without you two and I want to continue spending my time together with you, for however long that is. There is a lot more I feel like I could say, but I really just want to thank you for our happy life together now and the happy one we will have in the future.”

He looks up at both of them.

Makoto is crying still, but his smile is so bright he practically lights up the room. Rin is sobbing uncontrollably, half of his faced shoved into Makoto shoulder, soaking it in tears and snot.

There is a few beats of silence before, “W-who gave you permission to be that fucking romantic all of a sudden? We were supposed to be comforting Makoto, not making me cry like a damn baby.”

There is no heat behind the statement; it’s just Rin’s usual embarrassment showing, especially since he’s been made to cry so easily. But it’s the perfect thing for him to say because it makes Makoto break into laughter.

He laughs and he laughs, so loud, so happy sounding that it echoes through their tiny bathroom. It’s a soothing sound and any remaining tension in the brunet’s body simply melts away. It’s not long after that Rin grins, tears still streaming down his face, and joins him.

It makes Haru smile, his face actually hurting because of how big the smile on his face is. The two of them never fail to make someone as impassive as him smile and he loves them even more for it. He leans over and snuggles closer to his tallest lover, fitting himself against his side and closes his eyes relishing in the sound of his partners laughter.

After a few minutes, the laughter fades but their smiles stayed glued to their faces even when Rin runs his fists across his eyes, wiping away any stray tears across his redden cheeks.

“I can’t believe I’ve been out romanticized by someone who thinks swimming in the middle of December is a good idea for a first date.”

“Swimming is always a good idea.”

Rin shakes his head huffing out a small laugh. “Of course.”

He gazes between both of his lovers a smirk settling itself on his face. “I guess if Haru is capable of giving his vows I can give my own. I’ll be skipping all of the sappy shit, I think I’ve heard enough out of Haru to last me a lifetime.”

“I seriously love you both, okay? And I know I’m not the easiest to deal with a lot of times…but it means the world to me that both of you stick around, even when I’m being a brat. I act on impulse usually and I’ve been told many times that I should think before I do anything, but being in a relationship with you two is something that I’ve never had to think about—well I mean not that I don’t think about our relationship just that—fuck I don’t even know what the fuck I’m trying to say—I just know for a fact that being with you is second nature to me and I cannot and will not imagine myself with anyone else ever—I just fucking love you two and you guys are seriously stuck with me for life!”

Haru smirks before joking, “I’m not sure I can deal with your drama queen self for that long.”

He earns himself a punch to the arm. “At least I’m not an ass!”

“That’s because you don’t have one.”

“Oi! That’s a damn lie! We all know that I’ve got the best ass!”

“Mm, I think Makoto’s butt would disagree.”

“Well, I can’t argue with that. That’s a fine piece of ass right there.”

There’s a squeaking sound and both boys look up to their brunet lover who is covering his face now with both of his hand, cheeks flared with a dark red color.

“You guys are seriously the only people I know that can go from giving out beautiful vows to arguing who has the nicer butt!” His tone would sound more offended if it weren’t for the fact that he was terribly embarrassed.

Rin snakes a hand around his waist and nuzzles closer to his blushing lover, mimicking Haru’s position. “Sorry, love. We all know that I have a one track mind.”

“A filthy mind is more like it.” Makoto accuses.

“Yeah, that too!”

Makoto shakes his head and lowers his hands so that he can wrap them around both his partners. “I suppose it’s my turn now, though I don’t know what I could possibly say that you two haven’t already.”

He clears his throat, voice heavy and thick from crying, before he continues. “It pretty much goes without saying how much I love being here with you, sharing our tiny home that can barely fit one of us let alone the three of us plus two cats. We’ve come so far together in life and nothing makes me happier than waking up every morning surrounded by the ones that I love. It’s hard at times to just suddenly have attacks out of nowhere and to have to sit there and deal with them before I can continue on with my life. I know I blame myself a lot for my anxiety when I know I shouldn’t and I know it isn’t always an easy thing to have to try a deal with me while I’m at my worse, but I am so very thankful that I can keep you with me. Having you two is ten times better than any anxiety medication a doctor could prescribe me. This is something I’ve dealt with for a long time and it’s comforting to know that even as I continue to deal with it, I’ll always have both of you by my side. I…think Haru’s right about us staying together, I think no matter how far about we have to be from each other, we will always come back to one another in the end and that we will always love and support each other. I love you, and I look forward to spending the rest of my life with both of you by my side.”

Both of his partners cuddle as close as humanly possible to him and he can just feel the smiles radiating off of both of them even though he can’t see their faces.

They sit there for what seems like hours, simply enjoying being together—eventually they move to get up as Haru and Rin both have kinks in their necks and Makoto’s starting to lose feeling in both of his arms.

They stand together, Rin and Haru making a point of holding onto one of Makoto’s arms, partially helping him stand steady after sitting down for so long and just because it was comforting. This attack was actually mild compared to some of the ones he’s had but it doesn’t mean that Makoto is completely 100% now. It’s comforting to see his smile and hear him laugh, but that doesn’t change the fact that his mind and body are completely drained no matter how hard he tries to ignore or hide it. It may not have been as awful as some of his previous attacks, but each attack is different and not always dealt with in the same way.

The best way of dealing with this now is tucking Makoto into their comfy bed and loving on him until he feels better again.  

Which is exactly what Haru and Rin do, they assume their normal sleeping spots—Rin against the wall and Haru on the edge, leaving Makoto in the middle because both swimmers can agree that he was the warmest and softest to cuddle with. Makoto doesn’t mind, forever used to having a pair squished into his sides for as long as the twins have been able to walk.

Haru cuddles to Makoto’s right, arm around his chest and head resting on his chest while Rin snuggles to him on his left, head resting in the juncture of where his neck and shoulder meet, twisting both legs around one of the brunets. Makoto resigns himself to always sleeping on his back because he wouldn’t dare move even if his life depended on it.

The lifestyle they live is rather unorthodox. Not many will ever agree with the way they choose to be together—they aren’t perfect individuals by any means and they are chalk full of issues that they are forced to deal with every day of their lives. Their relationship isn’t perfect, they aren’t always happy with one another, some days are harder than others, and every day is always a brand new challenge to face…

But as the three of them lay cuddled together happily in a home—their home—that they’ve made together, surrounded by each other and two fluffy cats (who came running into the bedroom to snuggle around Makoto’s head and feet as soon as they laid down)—Rin can only think two things: how much he loves this unconventional life that he’s living…

And how incredibly warm it is.    

\--

There’s a few beats of silence before:

“So is this the part where we have honey moon sex?”

The scandalized ‘ _Rin!’_ that leaves Makoto’s mouth definitely makes this life worth it.     

**Author's Note:**

> (About 97% of my fics involve Makoto being hurt physically/mentally in some way and I don't know why I do that because I love Makoto so much and I just relate to his character so well...ugh.)
> 
> I'll write a happy Mako fic one day. Today is not that day.


End file.
